Curiosity And The Cat
by FuchsiaMae
Summary: A fluffy one-shot featuring human!Curiosity, human!Reassembly Machine  an OC belonging to did-you-reboot , and a kitten - based on the axiom about curiosity and cats...


**A/N:** Remy/Reassembly Machine is borrowed with permission from did-you-reboot. Thanks for letting me play with him!

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Remy Maxime was an important man at Aperture Science. He didn't have an impressive title, or a fancy office, or a big salary—but he was important, in a quiet but indispensable sort of way. In a place like the Enrichment Center, lots of things got broken. Remy was the one who fixed them. He didn't do it for pride or prestige, of course—he just liked fixing things.

Today the lab boys had managed to break around half a million dollars' worth of irreplaceable equipment, and although it had kept him busy the entire day and nearly cost him an arm—that was a close shave—Remy had managed to fix it for them. It was satisfying to know that he'd saved them Mr. Johnson's ire, and probably their jobs. He was in a good mood by the time his shift was over. Whistling brightly to himself, he tidied his workstation, exchanged his lab coat for his ordinary coat, and locked the workroom door behind him, ready to go home after a long but productive day—

"Mister?"

He turned around at the voice behind him, but saw no one there. "Excuse me?"

Then he felt a tug at his pants leg. "Can you help me, mister?" Looking down, he saw the speaker: a little girl with curly ginger hair, perhaps six years old, dressed in a standard-issue playsuit from the employee daycare. The eyes that looked up at him were red-rimmed from crying, and tearstains streaked her freckled cheeks. "Do you fix things?"

He knelt to the little girl's level. "Do you need something fixed?" She nodded vigorously. And then he noticed she was holding something—cradled in her arms was the limp body of a robotic kitten, one of the experimental litter that the lab had donated to the daycare. Its tiny head flopped at an unnatural angle.

The girl swallowed a sob as she held the kitten out to him. "I-I didn't mean to hurt him—he just fell, and when I picked him up his head was all funny—"

"Hey, hey, it's alright." Remy gave her a comforting smile. "Let me see what I can do."

She smiled hesitantly in return. "Thank you."

He carefully took the body from her arms and got to his feet, unlocking the workshop to let himself in. The girl followed behind—she went wide-eyed and quiet for a moment as she took in the shelves upon shelves of equipment and spare parts, and then burst into inquisitive chatter. "What are those? Did you build them? What's this thing do? How does it work? Can you show me?"

Remy chuckled. "You like robotics, huh?"

"I like everything!"

"That's good," he chuckled again. "Maybe I can teach you how some of this stuff works sometime."

The child's eyes went even wider. "_Would_ you?"

"Definitely. But first I should fix our little friend here, huh?" Moving to his workbench, Remy laid the robot out to examine it.

"What're you doing?"

He looked over to see the girl balancing on tiptoe to peek up at his workspace. "I'm trying to find where the problem is."

"Where is it—?"

"It's going to take me a minute. Watch."

First he popped open the kitten's belly to check its—"What's that?"

"This is the power pack." He eased out the rectangular black box. "This is where he gets his energy."

"Do I have one of those?" The girl's hands went to her own stomach.

"No, only robots have these. See, there's a battery in here that recharges when he's plugged into a socket. If this runs out of power or doesn't work properly, he won't be able to move." But according to the tiny built-in meter, the pack was charged and fully functional. No problems there. He popped it back into the kitten's belly and searched elsewhere.

"Is he fixed?"

"No, that wasn't the problem. I'm still looking for—ah! Here we go."

"What is it?"

"Look." Opening the kitten's spinal cover had revealed the problem. "When he fell, his head landed wrong, and the wires in his neck got twisted out of place. See how these are loose, at the base of his head here?"

"Uh huh."

"With those disconnected, the power can't reach from his battery to his brain—that's why he's not working. So all I have to do is reconnect these here—and—"

Under his hands, the kitten's dim eyes flickered to life.

The little girl gasped. As Remy quickly closed the seam along its back, the kitten's tail twitched, and it let out a soft mewl. Its eyes fixed on the humans towering over it, and it scrambled to its feet. Remy grinned. "You okay, little guy?" It mewed again in response.

The girl beamed. "Thank you! Thank you so, so, so much!" She scooped the repaired robot up in one arm—unlike a live cat, it seemed perfectly content to be the child's playmate—and with the other caught Remy in a grateful hug.

He laughed in surprise. "No problem! If you ever need any help like that again, you can always come right to me." She grinned and nodded, about to scamper off, but his voice stopped her one more time. "And hey—if you ever want me to teach you about any of this stuff down here, just ask."

"Oh—!" Her eyes went wide again, and she looked about to bombard him with questions—when footsteps from down the hall made them both turn towards the door.

"Mr. Maxime?"

The familiar voice made Remy's heart skip. A hot blush rose all the way to his ears, turning his face as red as his flaming hair. The girl's ginger brows wrinkled as she noticed the changed. "Are you okay?"

"Mr. Maxime—"

But before he could reply a face appeared in the doorway, and he found himself pinned by a pair of chocolate-brown eyes. His breath caught in his throat. "H-hah—" He cleared it and tried again. "H-hi Caroline."

The boss's secretary met him with an apologetic smile. "I hate to bother you—I know you're heading home—but—"

"Miss Caroline!" The little girl flew past Remy's knees, bouncing in front of Caroline with a beaming grin. "Look! He fixed him!"

"_There_ you are." She sighed in relief. "You really can't go running off like that, Marie—"

"But Mr. Doug said the nice man down here would fix my kitty, and he did! See?" She held the kitten out proudly.

"Well I'm very glad," Caroline smiled. "You run along back to the playroom, now. They're missing you."

"Yes'm." With a last happy grin in Remy's direction, the girl scampered off with the robot in her arms. Remy kept his eyes fixed on her as long as he could, not trusting himself to meet Caroline's gaze.

"Mr. Maxime?" He was acutely aware of the blush still heating his skin. Finally daring to glance over, he was met with a grateful smile. "Thank you for helping Marie. You're a lifesaver."

"Oh, it was noth—" Her lips brushed against his cheek in a gentle kiss, and he choked on the rest of his sentence.

"I'll let you get home now. But thank you. You made that little girl very happy." And with a last flash of that smile, she was gone.

Remy felt his knees go weak. He sank into his chair, one hand to his cheek where she'd kissed it, a dreamily distant expression on his face. No doubt about it—he loved his job.


End file.
